Best measuring speaker?

[Kvalsvoll]

but the extremely narrow directivity was almost a one person listen.

One of the virtues of new controlled pattern designs is wide sweet-spot and similar tonality across a very wide listening area. A radiation pattern is not just narrow or wide, it also has shape, and the shape has a huge effect on sound. It is possible to cover a quite large listening area together with very good attenuation of boundary reflections, and generally increased early reflection attenuation.

None of this can be seen in a simple "spinorama".

 

[sarumbear]

There is a speaker with the highest preference score and it is fair to say within the context of ASR that is the best measuring speaker.

I disagree. First, as its name tells us, it’s the best preferred speaker, not best measured. As you correctly pointed out the score is calculated using a limited set of measurements. There cannot be a best measuring speaker because a speaker design is always a compromise. You cannot have all available parameters the best.

 

[Ron Texas]

I disagree. First, as its name tells us, it’s the best preferred speaker, not best measured. As you correctly pointed out the score is calculated using a limited set of measurements. There cannot be a best measuring speaker because a speaker design is always a compromise. You cannot have all available parameters the best.

You can disagree all you want, but you are going down a road of semantics and not useful analysis. There can be all sorts of best measuring speakers. The question is what are you measuring.

 

[sarumbear]

You can disagree all you want, but you are going down a road of semantics and not useful analysis. There can be all sorts of best measuring speakers. The question is what are you measuring.

As you are asking what are you measuring, the word “best” cannot be applied. That is my point. Best defines a unique case, not usable when there are options.

Communication without semantics is not possible.

 

[Ron Texas]

As you are asking what are you measuring, the word “best” cannot be applied. That is my point. Best defines a unique case, not usable when there are options.

Communication without semantics is not possible.

The US and UK, two nations separated by a common language.

 

[sigbergaudio]

You can disagree all you want, but you are going down a road of semantics and not useful analysis. There can be all sorts of best measuring speakers. The question is what are you measuring.

I guess the point is you can't have the best measuring speaker, period. But you can have the speaker with the highest dynamic range, with the smoothest on-axis response, the one that can reproduce the lowest frequencies, etc.

 

[sarumbear]

The US and UK, two nations separated by a common language.

I need to learn more of your use case but it is called English, part of the UK

 

[pierre]

Spinoroma is very misleading in what's the better measuring speaker. It gives high scores to speakers that only have constant direcitivty in the higher frequencies and that arent broadband constant, and it disregards how a speaker interacts with the room in regard to boundaries. And then there are areas like IMD distortion, coherency/time domain behaviour, thermal compression, etc. which it also ignores.

The result is that you can have a speaker that scores lower in a spinorama vs another but ends up measuring much more even when it's placed in an actual room. And also be better in other audible and important areas compared to the one that scored higher.

I believe spinorama.org is not "very misleading". You would like it to be so you could convince people that your way is better and sell your speakers.
What is spinorama.org?
- a collection of speaker measurements freely available either as a website or a database
- it covers a large fraction of the common speakers and provides reasonable data.
- it does allow you to sort speakers by various metrics (harmann score included) -- you are all educated enough to know the limitation of this scoring method and any scoring method btw that rely on only one parameter.

What spinorama.org is not?
- a website that is trying to sell you something
- a website that pretend that more expensive is better
- a website that have a perfect methodology for ranking speakers

And honestly, if you want high SPL you buy a large speaker. Nobody expect a 4 inches speaker to have the same output of a 15 inches. And yes I know you can play with a DSP. It would be great if @amirm and Erin would release more data for each speaker but they don't.

We all agree that you can get better results in room with speakers that optimise for it, you can also do it with a DSP. This speakers are usually large and expensive and they are definitely not interior friendly and they must represent strictly less than 1% of the market.

What does best mean btw? best portable speaker? best speaker under 200$? best speaker for a party? best speaker for optimised PIR without a dsp?

There are plenty of excellent speakers out there, all the top speakers wrt score are good (and sound close to each other), output is more or less a function of the size.

Personal opinion: amp and dacs are transparent for decades, speakers are getting very good, the only thing that really make a difference is the room and the integration with the speakers either via dsp or via "smartly designed" speakers ala @Bjorn.

I see this...

View attachment 297686

I have fixed the DNS (now there is an entry for spinorama.org (without www.) and http or https requests should be redirected to https://www.spinorama.org.
@kma100 Please let me know if that doesn't work. The DNS change can take some time to propagate.

 

[Purité Audio]

One of the virtues of new controlled pattern designs is wide sweet-spot and similar tonality across a very wide listening area. A radiation pattern is not just narrow or wide, it also has shape, and the shape has a huge effect on sound. It is possible to cover a quite large listening area together with very good attenuation of boundary reflections, and generally increased early reflection attenuation.

None of this can be seen in a simple "spinorama".

I only know that ( just like the Beolab 90’s set to ‘narrow’ ) the image lost focus very quickly once you moved your head laterally by only a very small amount, not a criticism but perhaps worth considering for your particular listening preference.
Keith

 

[pierre]

haha lmao the best measuring speaker is the ls60 xD

I am curious to see why you think so? Data is from KEF. That's an active speaker, they optimised it for flat, low extension, medium SPL. What's wrong with that?

All KEF measurements are here. Most KEF data are valid above 300Hz and estimated below. I guess it will perform a bit less well on a Klippel. The list of measurements of KEF speakers that have been on a Klippel is available here.

You cannot really compare the 2 measurements (Klippel v.s. not even if well done); Klippel always score lower than other methods because of higher resolution, less smoothing, less guessing in the bass : if run on a Klippel the LS60 is likely to come out with a lower score.

 

[Tom C]

I only know that ( just like the Beolab 90’s set to ‘narrow’ ) the image lost focus very quickly once you moved your head laterally by only a very small amount, not a criticism but perhaps worth considering for your particular listening preference.
Keith

What is a Barrowmaster?

 

[Kvalsvoll]

I only know that ( just like the Beolab 90’s set to ‘narrow’ ) the image lost focus very quickly once you moved your head laterally by only a very small amount, not a criticism but perhaps worth considering for your particular listening preference.
Keith

Of course some speakers are like that, can be a result from some sort of compromise chosen by the designer. But it is not a property inherent in horn or "narrow" speakers. Well, perhaps if the "narrow" pattern is truly narrow and changes enough to be noticeable when you just move your head.

But moving off-center will shift the renderd images towards the closer speaker, and there will be sort of a loss in focus, in that the rendering is no longer so precise and solid.

 

[Purité Audio]

What is a Barrowmaster?

It was a joke created by @ThomasSavage, sadly Thomas is no longer with us succumbing to a Sanatogen, Vics vapour rub overdose.
Keith

 

[LTig]

But moving off-center will shift the renderd images towards the closer speaker, and there will be sort of a loss in focus, in that the rendering is no longer so precise and solid.

Not necessarily. You can toe them in so much that the on axis crossing point is before the listening position. Then moving left puts you closer to on axis of the right speaker, and vice versa.

 

[Digby]

2- Learn to understand all measurements and decide if the compromise the designer made is acceptable by you.

I'd just like to add to the beginning of this "if you have twenty years to spare". There is much talk of how important a flat frequency response is or low distortion and so on but, as you say, a speaker is not one measurement or even many measurements, but the interaction of all those measurements and the individuals room (and amplifier, if passive). This is, presumably, very complicated, much more so than measurements might suggest.

I have asked a few times for some kind of hierarchical system as when you should prefer x (say frequency response) over y (low distortion) or how two or more measurements interact with each other, but have drawn mostly blanks, am I correct in thinking there are no real shortcuts here?

I find what Earl Geddes has to say about how audible certain distortion harmonics are very illuminating. I can't speak to its veracity, as I don't know enough, but I definitely would like to see more practical information presented on ASR, rather than 'here are the graphs, get on with it'.

I think the 'decipher for yourself' approach is liable to lead to misunderstandings for anyone not educated to a high degree in acoustics or similar - which is what, 5% or fewer forum members?

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Not necessarily. You can toe them in so much that the on axis crossing point is before the listening position. Then moving left puts you closer to on axis of the right speaker, and vice versa.

Yes you can, and indeed now the centered image does not shift towards the closer speaker. But it still loses focus, and there are some other drawbacks to this extreme toe-in.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Yes you can, and indeed now the centered image does not shift towards the closer speaker. But it still loses focus, and there are some other drawbacks to this extreme toe-in.

Note that this center-always-in-center works for some specific speakers, and with extreme toe-in.

Experimenting with toe-in can change the presentation of the sound quite a lot, such as width, focus, sense of depth. A more moderate toe-in is usually preferred, but never flat/no toe-in like you see in those pictures of typical systems.

This of course requires a speaker that is well behaved, with reasonably flat both on-axis and off-axis response, and this can be seen from the "spinorama".

 

[Jon AA]

This of course requires a speaker that is well behaved, with reasonably flat both on-axis and off-axis response, and this can be seen from the "spinorama".

I would add to that, moderate to narrow dispersion speakers. "Extreme Toe," "Cross Firing," "Time Intensity Trading" to improve the spatial accuracy for off axis listeners just doesn't work with really wide dispersion speakers.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

I would add to that, moderate to narrow dispersion speakers. "Extreme Toe," "Cross Firing," "Time Intensity Trading" to improve the spatial accuracy for off axis listeners just doesn't work with really wide dispersion speakers.

Obviously. Or, perhaps not obvious?

Since level from the closer, more off-axis speaker must be reduced, there needs to be a reduction on sound level radiation off-axis, so, too wide does not work. And off-axis not only needs to be reduced in level, also needs reasonably flat off-axis frequency response, or else there will be too large change in tonality.

I find less toe-in works better overall. Center vocal shifts, but stays more focused. Some instruments does not shift, and overall soundstage still fills the room. Well, not as good as in center listening position, but sort of works.

 

[Jon AA]

Or, perhaps not obvious?

That's why I mentioned it. I see in many, many discussions people saying they like really wide dispersion because it "sounds the same all over the room," and is good for multiple listeners for that reason. And I think they're correct in many cases when tonality is the only thing they judge. But I do think some who say that haven't paid enough attention to the spatial aspect of the recording and how the soundstage almost completely collapses into the nearest speaker in such a setup.